


More Than Memory

by amyfortuna



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Kissing, Mystery, POV Arwen Undómiel, Post-War of the Ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-16
Updated: 2016-02-16
Packaged: 2018-05-21 04:05:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6037369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/pseuds/amyfortuna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lúthien visits Arwen five times during her mortal life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than Memory

**Author's Note:**

> For silmladylove, the prompt: Arwen/Lúthien, Arwen starting seeing ghosts or dead people after chosing mortality, angst, mystery, sadness and bittersweetness, prompted by anon
> 
> Also I'm not sure it really counts as incest when you're kissing your great-great-granddaughter but here's your warning for it.

It first happened at Edoras, the day after she said the final farewell to her father, and watched the company off into the distance, heading for Isengard. She stood before the long mirror in the rooms that had been assigned for her use, placing a heavy golden necklace about her neck. The room was quiet, and she was alone.

And slowly, from behind her mirrored self, a form like her own, but pale and grey somehow, slipped out and placed an arm around her shoulder, giving her the saddest, sweetest smile.

The necklace slipped from her hand, crashing to the floor. She turned her head to look, but could see nothing beside her. When she glanced back, the figure - herself? Or another? - had gone as surely as if it had never existed in the first place.

She shook her head and bent to pick up the necklace. It was a momentary fancy brought on by mingled happiness and grief, that was all.

\----

It next happened five years later, the night she would recall later as the night she became pregnant with Eldarion. Aragorn slept beside her peacefully, and she smiled to see him, smoothing her hand over his brow. But there was a restlessness in her that could not be denied.

She rose from the bed, throwing her white robe about herself, and walked barefoot to the great throne room, now utterly silent in the deeps of the night. Ascending the stairs up to the throne, she sat down - not in the King's throne itself, but in the less elaborate chair at its right hand where she would sit next to Aragorn from time to time. Her thoughts danced about her mind, showing her snatches of joy unforeseen and grief to come.

The white figure floating up the centre of the great hall gave her pause, and she rose from her seat, silent and careful. The figure was almost her own self: tall, dark-haired, with eyes of grey, clad in white with a dark cloak over her shoulders, but this was all shades of grey in the moonlight, and Arwen could not quite make sense of it.

When the figure finally glided to a halt at the foot of the steps to the throne, their eyes met at last, the white figure lifting her eyes to meet Arwen's.

Arwen spoke. "Who are you?" Her voice sounded small and frightened to her own ears.

"Do not be afraid, Arwen Undomiel," the figure said, her voice calm and sweet, her hand rising up toward Arwen. "You are the Evening and I am the Morning, but we are both of the Twilight. I am Lúthien, whose choice you made."

Arwen found that she was trembling. Nevertheless she reached out for Lúthien's hand, but it passed through her own like mist. "How come you here, still on this Middle-earth? Are not the souls of mortals meant to abandon it, my foremother?"

Lúthien's smile was mysterious, breathtaking, and Arwen felt her own breath catch at it, her body beginning to hum with some remnant of pleasure that lingered from her earlier lovemaking - or was it more than that?

"Someday you will know," Lúthien said. "On that day you will reach out for me and I will take you by the hand and guide you home, though many years yet remain until that day." She smiled again, warm and delighted, and then the form of her body seemed to dissolve like mist in the wind, even as Arwen watched.

\-----

She stood alone at the walls of the city, the Queen of the land of the Reunited Kingdom, with her husband and her son away at war, and her young daughters playing in the green grass behind her. It was evening, and the stars were just beginning to come out, when the white figure of Lúthien appeared again - this time suspended in the air just over the wall of the city.

Lúthien laughed to see her. "Why, my child, such a gloomy face!" she exclaimed.

"Many cares weigh on me," Arwen said. "For all you did, you never had to rule a country."

Lúthien laughed again, sweetly. "True enough." Then she smiled quickly, her eyes shining bright. "Are those two yours?" She gestured to the girls playing in the grass, and at Arwen's nod, bent her head in approval.

"It has been said that never shall our line fail," Arwen said. "I also have a son, and my heart fears for him."

"On a time," Lúthien said, "I too sent my husband and son to battle, and my heart feared for them. But they returned whole, for they received unlooked-for aid. Do not fear, my beloved." She gave Arwen one last smile, and dissolved into nothingness but Arwen's heart, after that, was lighter.

Three days later, when she received word that Aragorn and Eldarion had been victorious and were unharmed, the courtiers remarked on how little surprised she seemed.

\-----

Arwen's third daughter, Clorwen, was a surprise to all including Arwen, her birth in the eightieth year of the King's reign being celebrated far and wide. It could not be denied that Aragorn was beginning to grow old, but she brought life back into him for nearly forty years more with her merriment and laughter. Those few who remembered Celebrían said that she most resembled her, in personality as well as looks, with her silver hair and bright eyes, and indeed Arwen thought so herself.

On the evening of her wedding day, once the festivities were all over, Arwen sat down at her dressing table alone in the bedroom she shared with Aragorn, and began to slowly, methodically, remove her jewellery before the mirror. A white form appeared within it, the figure of a maiden dancing across the floor of the room, and Arwen smiled to see it, turning to greet Lúthien once again.

Lúthien’s eyes were very bright, gleaming with delight and laughter, and she whispered softly, for Arwen's ears alone, "Not long now, beloved," and bent, brushed her shadowy lips over Arwen's mouth. Arwen could almost taste the kiss as more than mist. A chill went through her of fear and delight, and she brought her hand to her mouth even as Lúthien’s figure dissolved once more.

\-----

Under the light of the dying sun on the hill of Cerin Amroth in the fading land of Lothlorien, Arwen sank into the grass, overcome by grief. The time had been all too short - far too short, an eyeblink to the thousands of years she had lived, the mere epilogue to a long tale. Her son reigned now, and her daughters lived happy lives - her first daughter was a mother and nearly a grandmother at this point, her second daughter had never stopped having adventures - so when it came to her children and their children, she was at peace.

But the end of her life was a struggle. "I wasn't done!" she whispered into the evening breeze. All about her the golden leaves of the mallorn trees were falling. "This gift is bitter and sad, and all is dark about me." She closed her eyes and lay back fully on the earth, her hands at her sides, outspread.

A hand slipped into her own, and she opened startled eyes to see the laughing figure of Lúthien above her, kneeling on the green grass. Lúthien bent and kissed her, slow and sweet like honey. Her voice was soft and tender, and she whispered, "I have come to take you with me at last, my love. For you and I are not bound ever to this world, and beyond it is our home."


End file.
